Rizzo Gets New Duties; Kasten: No Urgency for Search

Saying that his team needed "a little bit of calming rather than more change right now," Washington Nationals President Stan Kasten has given Mike Rizzo control of day-to-day major league operations for the foreseeable future. Rizzo, an assistant general manager with the club since 2006, "will have primary responsibility for all matters relating to the major league team," Kasten said.

Kasten said that the Nationals have no urgency to fill their general manager position will a permanent replacement.

The team is planning to send an e-mail this morning to all other clubs notifying them to contact Rizzo with all inquiries related to the big league team.

The rest of the front office will remain intact, too, with Dana Brown staying on as scouting director and Bob Boone staying on as assistant general manager.

"Mike is a guy that I have a lot of confidence in, our owners have a lot of confidence in, and at some point I have to do a search and a search will progress, but I don't feel in any rush at all," Kasten said. "There's no particular urgency or timetable for that."

I posted this over at NFA in response to something Brian said, but will raise it here as well for general discussion purposes:

I see this as a decision to let Rizzo take us through the draft and then see where things stand at midseason. That's not a terrible move in my view. It provides continuity for the moment, and lets the team evaluate Rizzo as the front-line guy, without saddling him with the "interim" title that might cause him to leave if he ultimately was not selected as the next GM. It's not like the pool of attractive GM candidates will shrink appreciably by midseason, or even by the end of the season. Let's wait and see what we have, on the field, in the minors, via the draft, and in the front office, by July, or even October. Then we can select the right guy for whatever the job appears to require at that point.

To be fair, Natscan, this is the first year with enough continuity in personnel to even be thinking about a Nationals ethos.

And we're talking about a team that just canned its GM as one with continuity.

Posted by: Section506 | March 4, 2009 9:42 AM

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... I agree Sect506. That was my point. This is the first time we can even begin to look forward to such a team image. With things beginning to settle out (re the news about Rizzo) having a Nationals ethos is becoming a thing to be expected, not just dreamed about.

"Why would he say all that and not say what it clearly means...Rizzo is the interim GM?"

Because he's not the interim GM. He's the ACTING GM. "Interim" implies that he's only a seat-warmer until they get the real GM. "Acting" implies that he's doing the job now, and if he does it well for long enough the "acting" part might just go away. Or if they have the opportunity to bring someone on who is even more qualified for the job than Rizzo, they can do so without Rizzo losing face - thereby increasing the chances that he won't get pissed and leave.

How many years was Bud Selig the acting commissioner before MLB finally gave him the full title? The point is that someone can be "acting" for quite some time and do the job effectively. "Interim" generally implies a short shelf life for whoever holds that title. Kasten is saying two things here. (1) They're in no hurry on this process. (2) They have full confidence in Rizzo to do the job for as long as it might take. Nothing wrong with either of those. Sounds like Rizzo is on board with that too, which is good.

Going back again (sorry) about Strasburg. Alright, the kid can pitch. But how does he fail?

I saw this written in one of the many articles about him and it sticks in my mind. Can't remember who said it (Bowden? another scout?) but it's like, yea we know he can pitch. But put him in the big leagues and sooner or later he'll get lit up. How he handles that will be the key to his success.

Wow, we've got a whole slew of topics going on, but let me jump in on all of them.

Rizzo is acting GM until they can do a full search, odds on he gets the job, but if they do go outside he can still save face, worst case would be hiring someone else and have him leave and then the scouting/draft team is headless.

Trying to guess what Strasburg's injury risk based on what some online yahoo says about his mechanics is like trying to figure out if that noise your car is making will require a new transmittion by playing the tape of it on youtube and seeing what people say.

I think we are close to having a team ethos, and many won't like it, but I think it fits with the city. Bad guys who've made good. Young, Dukes, Milledge, Olsen all have bad track records, but are now "straight shooters" trying to emulate guys like Zimmerman, Dunn, etc. Chicks alway dig the bad boy who's tryinig to do what's right, hell half of hollywood's movies (and movie stars) follow that exact script.

St. Claire has altered the delivery of two other notable pitchers in the past. When the Nats acquired Ryan Wagner, they encouraged him to go back to his side-arm delivery and abandon the overarm motion stressed by the Reds.

Last Spring, he then turned to Matt Chico and worked with him on restoring the higher leg kick that was apparent in footage of the lefty in high school.

Both pitchers ended up injured, requiring surgery and lengthy recoveries.

This could be completely coincidental, sure. But it does kind of put me off messing with Olsen's delivery to gain a few more MPH on his fastball. It's just a kneejerk reaction, though, right?

Trying to guess what Strasburg's injury risk based on what some online yahoo says about his mechanics is like trying to figure out if that noise your car is making will require a new transmission by playing the tape of it on youtube and seeing what people say.

JiM, i'm going to guess that st randy has altered more deliveries than just those two. plus wagner had some injury issues *before* randy got hold of him, so it's probably a little simplistic to blame him.

Part of an assistant's duties is to fill in for the person you 'assist' when they aren't around or available. Rizzo is doing just that since Bowden is gone. All Kasten is doing is re-stating what Rizzo was doing the moment that Bowden announced his resignation.

If Rizzo can help solve the teams pitching questions by the end of the season, draft trade or call up I don't care but just give me 5 guys who can start with out being laughed at by the other team, then the I am sold.